I have ESET Smart Security and I have tried disabling it and whitelisting the Desktop Dungeons directory (heck, I tried my entire Steam directory).

The thing I have discovered is as long as it doesn't try loading a saved game it works. Right now, if I try to start the game I get the error in the topic title. If I delete the save folder it will load and I can play. Restore the save folder and it will crash again. Please help.

Something I have noticed, if I create a new kingdom and quit I don't have a problem starting over. However, once I finish the first dungeon (the one you start in) and get to the town screen I am done after that - it will always fail on start (yes, I've made it start as admin and tried various compatibility modes). I want to guess it's some sort of Windows 8 permission thing that happens when it tries to read the save files or something (I took ownership of everything and still same problem)

Are there any permissions to do with creating directories? The game tries to create a directory to store your completed runs in, can you zip up what your Saves directory looks like when the game is crashing and either post it here or email it to info@qcfdesign.com please?